My first introduction to horror was the old Twilight Zone movie. I was home with my sister and the babysitter and we came in during the last sketch, the John Lithgow one with the gremlin on the wing. I almost pissed my pants, I sas so petrified. Then, I thought it was over and I could breath easy, and suddenly Dan Akroyd goes and turns into some type of demon-thing in the car, which sent me screaming to bed.

The first horror novel I read was Books of Blood, number whatever...the one with The Hellbound Heart in it, when I was twelve. I was hooked.

JNewman wrote:Mine were those SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK books. In fact, I still love 'em . . . .

God, the artwork *alone* in that series was the stuff of nightmares, all stringy and "decayed"-looking. Fantastic.

This was mine too. My third grade teacher read these to the class in October whenever it was too stormy for us to have recess. She'd turn the lights off and we'd all be terrified for an hour or so. I think Nickelodeon's "Are You Afraid of the Dark" had come out at this point too, because I remember my very first short story ripped off the concept of the horror story club and was called "The Skeleton with Eyes".

I was very scared of skulls that still had human eyes in them when I was little.

My love of horror was cemented by hovering in the scary movie section of blockbuster and freaking myself out by looking at all the pictures on the backs of the boxes and when my best friend, Dana, loaned me her copies of Weaveworld and The Thief of Always.

For me, it was Stephen King. I know, I know, but he started publishing before I was even born and I grew up hearing his name like some of you guys heard Poe and Lovecraft. I've recounted the full story on my blog, but to be short, I was little and my Moms had The Shining, which she refused to finish reading. I wanted it oh so bad, but she wouldn't let me read it. I waited for my time, and finally picked it up at the Book-Mobile at school a couple years later. And that was all it took. I've always read horror and it's the dominating genre on my book shelves, though John Saul does share the same shelf as Nicholas Sparks. (I know, I know... but I read widely. Very, very widely. If it's in print, I'll read it.)

I might be dating myself here, but the earliest scary books I remember reading were those by Lois Duncan. I've not read them since, so they probably weren't very scary, but I was about 8 or 9 when I read them. At 11, two things happened which solidified my love for fear - I saw Alien in the theater and read King's The Shining. From that point on, I read only 'grownup' books.

It took years before I could go into a bathroom without peeking behind the shower curtain to make sure there wasn't a dead, bloated woman lounging in the tub, just waiting...

kurtnewton wrote:Makes me wonder how many future horror writers will say they were influenced by Are You Afraid of the Dark? and R.L. Stine? Some of those story lines were actually pretty good.

They were! Even if some of them weren't outright scary, Are You Afraid of the Dark? generally had great shorts. I remember really liking the one about a girl summoning a spirit and then trying to bind it, but the spell called for a rod tipped with silver and she used a spoon that was stainless steel, so the spell didn't work and the spirit took her soul.

Speaking of shower curtains, I always check behind closed ones before going to the bathroom. It's an odd phobia but I'm always worried about greys (traditional looking aliens) popping up somewhere and behind the shower curtain is a likely place. Fuck the slashers, they don't have immobility beams.

Haggis wrote:Wasn't that you who wrote a bathroom-related story about evil visions in the shower curtain? Something along those lines?

Yeah, that was me. The faces on the wall. The twelve year old kid who chews through her own wrists under the delusion. Fucked up story.

Totally fucked up. I loved it. Have you sold it yet? Someone's got to buy that one.

Nope. I actually haven't even subbed it anywhere. I kinda forgot about it until you mentioned it. (That's sad, huh?) I might pull it out and scrub it up. It was only what... 500 words? It might need a little more flesh before it goes out. Thanks for reminding me about that one. It's not a bad story, I should have subbed it before now.

My first literary horror was Guy N Smith's Night Of The Crabs (great title). I was eleven or twelve and remember being more titilated by the sex scenes than scared by any goings on with pincers.

My first horror film would've been something by Hammer or Universal. As a kid I would watch the weekend horror double bills on tv with my mum. I was always impressed by the Universal stuff, not so much the Hammer films. When we first sat down and watched 'Salem's Lot and Halloween a few years later, they were the first films that really scared me.

I remember secretly watching Silver Bullet in elementary school and having the living daylights scared out of me.. as for horror fiction, I read The Shining when I was 14 and I've been hooked ever since.